13 ms·

I've been diving into this literature a bit recently, and it's been mostly encouraging. Affordable clean energy is realistic. Clean energy sources are typicall

by svara 6y ago

I've been diving into this literature a bit recently, and it's been mostly encouraging. Affordable clean energy is realistic. Clean energy sources are typically the cheapest sources of energy [0]. The intermittent production issue is solvable: At ~150 $/kWh storage, a combination of storage and renewables is the cheapest energy source 95% of the time [1]. The cost of different energy storage methods is coming down exponentially [2]. A combination of Li-Ion battery (short-term), pumped hydro (medium-term) and hydrogen (long-term, i.e. seasonal) storage is probably how to smooth out the burstiness of renewable energy production eventually [3]. When green hydrogen infrastructure is commonplace, the hydrogen can also be used to make synthetic jet fuel and feedstocks for the chemical industry. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source [1] https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(19)30300-9 https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(19)30300-9 [2] https://www.nature.com/articles/nenergy2017110/figures/1?proof=true https://www.nature.com/articles/nenergy2017110/figures/1?pro... [3] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S254243511830583X https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S254243511...

FabHK 6y ago
Regarding [1], the article quotes production costs of USD 50/MWh for renewables, and USD 100/MWh for coal (graph 3). You/[1] is saying that with storage costs of USD 150,000 per MWh, renewables can be competitive? It doesn't compute, unless I misunderstand something.
- azdle 6y ago
  Just from your numbers, it sounds like it's a good deal as long as you need to (grid) store less than 1/3 of your generated/consumed energy.
  - FabHK 6y ago
    There's a factor of 1000 there.
- wtallis 6y ago
  I think that $150000 per MWh buys you a storage system you can use more than once, rather than being the cost per usage of the storage system. After a few years, the amortized cost drops below coal generation.
- imtringued 6y ago
  Batteries last longer than one cycle...
- Retric 6y ago
  150,000$ / 3,000 charge cycles (~8.3 years) = 50$/MWh = 0.05c/kWh.
dmix 6y ago
I've read about a couple of solar projects that projected x/kWh and turned out to be much worse in production. Pakistan's big deployment is one example, it was planned to be 100MW but only produced 18MW. Mostly because they didn't factor in the dust that would cover the panels, keeping them clean was very expensive (I'm curious how this applies to other proposed desert deployments). Nor factoring in the typical malaise of public projects adding significant delays/costs, which is hardly unique to Pakistan when it comes to major infrastructure in 2020. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaid-e-Azam_Solar_Park https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaid-e-Azam_Solar_Park Then there's the famous Solyandra which got half a billion in US tax payer money and flopped without ever being competitive price-wise: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solyndra https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solyndra Tesla's famous Australian battery factory only has enough to power 30k homes for about 1-2hrs each day. It was on-schedule, which is rare, and also makes money but scaling it up to millions of homes to make a real dent in coal would be much more challenging, especially sourcing enough lithium. I think it's safe to take any cheery prediction from green projects and add 1.5x time/production costs and/or minus 30% of the expected output. Note: I'm not trying to rain on the parade, I'm otherwise all for this stuff as long as it's realistic on a large scale.
- newacct583 6y ago
  Solyndra's failure had nothing to do with technology at all. They failed because Chinese manufacturers undercut them in price, quite severely. Allegations of dumping (or fraud, on the other side) notwithstanding, what this says is that solar is actually much cheaper and more readily available than Solyndra's investors expected. And that's sort of the opposite of your point, no? Similarly the Tesla plant is doing exactly what it said it was going to do, when it was supposed to be finished, within the budget it had, and AFAIK is making money. You're asserting that it can't scale because it... worked?! As far as the Pakistani misdesign, yeah, I'm sure that's going to happen too. Nothing works perfectly. Nonetheless this seems like a pretty oddly constructed list of reasons why solar is "much worse in production". It seems to my eyes like it's doing much better than expected.
  - walrus01 6y ago
smeeth 6y ago
A little Its a little disheartening that current Lithium-Ion battery storage is at ~$350/kWh and is only projected to hit ~$150/kWh in 2050 [0]. [0] https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy19osti/73222.pdf https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy19osti/73222.pdf
- ben_w 6y ago
  Either the government report you cite is overly pessimistic, or bloomberg is overly optimistic: https://about.bnef.com/blog/battery-pack-prices-fall-as-market-ramps-up-with-market-average-at-156-kwh-in-2019/ https://about.bnef.com/blog/battery-pack-prices-fall-as-mark...
- taneq 6y ago
  $350/kWh is still ridiculously cheap. You could build a good off-grid battery system for $7000 or so, which for many people would pay itself off in a few years.
kevin_b_er 6y ago
Seasonal energy storage would be astounding. Combine an overkill of renewable energy with seasonal energy storage via hydrogen and you'd have as much energy as you could want.

by svara 6y ago

FabHK 6y ago

Regarding [1], the article quotes production costs of USD 50/MWh for renewables, and USD 100/MWh for coal (graph 3). You/[1] is saying that with storage costs of USD 150,000 per MWh, renewables can be competitive? It doesn't compute, unless I misunderstand something.

azdle 6y ago
Just from your numbers, it sounds like it's a good deal as long as you need to (grid) store less than 1/3 of your generated/consumed energy.
- FabHK 6y ago
  There's a factor of 1000 there.
wtallis 6y ago
I think that $150000 per MWh buys you a storage system you can use more than once, rather than being the cost per usage of the storage system. After a few years, the amortized cost drops below coal generation.
imtringued 6y ago
Batteries last longer than one cycle...
Retric 6y ago
150,000$ / 3,000 charge cycles (~8.3 years) = 50$/MWh = 0.05c/kWh.

dmix 6y ago

I've read about a couple of solar projects that projected x/kWh and turned out to be much worse in production. Pakistan's big deployment is one example, it was planned to be 100MW but only produced 18MW. Mostly because they didn't factor in the dust that would cover the panels, keeping them clean was very expensive (I'm curious how this applies to other proposed desert deployments). Nor factoring in the typical malaise of public projects adding significant delays/costs, which is hardly unique to Pakistan when it comes to major infrastructure in 2020. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaid-e-Azam_Solar_Park https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaid-e-Azam_Solar_Park Then there's the famous Solyandra which got half a billion in US tax payer money and flopped without ever being competitive price-wise: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solyndra https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solyndra Tesla's famous Australian battery factory only has enough to power 30k homes for about 1-2hrs each day. It was on-schedule, which is rare, and also makes money but scaling it up to millions of homes to make a real dent in coal would be much more challenging, especially sourcing enough lithium. I think it's safe to take any cheery prediction from green projects and add 1.5x time/production costs and/or minus 30% of the expected output. Note: I'm not trying to rain on the parade, I'm otherwise all for this stuff as long as it's realistic on a large scale.

newacct583 6y ago
Solyndra's failure had nothing to do with technology at all. They failed because Chinese manufacturers undercut them in price, quite severely. Allegations of dumping (or fraud, on the other side) notwithstanding, what this says is that solar is actually much cheaper and more readily available than Solyndra's investors expected. And that's sort of the opposite of your point, no? Similarly the Tesla plant is doing exactly what it said it was going to do, when it was supposed to be finished, within the budget it had, and AFAIK is making money. You're asserting that it can't scale because it... worked?! As far as the Pakistani misdesign, yeah, I'm sure that's going to happen too. Nothing works perfectly. Nonetheless this seems like a pretty oddly constructed list of reasons why solar is "much worse in production". It seems to my eyes like it's doing much better than expected.
- walrus01 6y ago

smeeth 6y ago

A little Its a little disheartening that current Lithium-Ion battery storage is at ~$350/kWh and is only projected to hit ~$150/kWh in 2050 [0]. [0] https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy19osti/73222.pdf https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy19osti/73222.pdf

ben_w 6y ago
Either the government report you cite is overly pessimistic, or bloomberg is overly optimistic: https://about.bnef.com/blog/battery-pack-prices-fall-as-market-ramps-up-with-market-average-at-156-kwh-in-2019/ https://about.bnef.com/blog/battery-pack-prices-fall-as-mark...
taneq 6y ago
$350/kWh is still ridiculously cheap. You could build a good off-grid battery system for $7000 or so, which for many people would pay itself off in a few years.

kevin_b_er 6y ago

Seasonal energy storage would be astounding. Combine an overkill of renewable energy with seasonal energy storage via hydrogen and you'd have as much energy as you could want.